Bungie Made A ‘Destiny 2’ Dating Sim At One Point

A recent reveal in a Destiny 2 narrative team interview has raised a few eyebrows in the community, for good, or inexplicably, for ill. It’s the news that at one point, there was an internal Destiny 2 dating sim made:

“We have, what do you call those, game jams, and stuff like that has been made in game dev jams within Bungie,” said lead narrative designer Jonathan To, when the topic of a Destiny dating sim came up.

This was confirmed by several others at Bungie, but this was many years ago, 5+ from the looks of it. And some are hoping that it still comes to pass. Here’s Robert Brookes, also on the narrative team:

Understandably, many fans are excited about the potential of romancing Mara Sov or Shaxx or Savathun (wait uhh is that just me?), and would indeed like this game made. Others, however, reacted poorly to the reveal that this was developed internally at one point, saying that it was “taking away resources” from places like PvP or somehow, Lightfall, even though this again, was something from over five years ago.

It also should be noted that a “game jam,” where developers make fun little projects that may or may not turn into anything substantive, is a common practice, and this was not some sort of mass diversion of Destiny resources into a dating sim that wouldn’t see the light of day. But as ever, many people refuse to understand context or enjoy fun. Sigh.

As for whether this might actually get made, as it stands, it seems unlikely. Bungie has previously talked about expanding Destiny as an IP to potentially other mediums or genres. But ideas like a Destiny mobile game or an animated series have not panned out, it seems. No plans have been announced past continued development of Destiny 2 and other, non-Destiny projects like Marathon.

A Dream Destiny would, of course, be very fun. In its decade as a series, players have been swooning over the various humans, awoken, exo and aliens in Destiny, and a dating sim seems like something a good part of the community would enjoy as a fun little diversion. Though yes, it is inescapable that if such a thing was made and released you would indeed get those “you made this and not PvP maps???” complaints. In another era, maybe this would have actually come to pass and been more than a fun game jam thing, but as of now, it does not seem terribly likely that it’s in the cards.

Follow me on Twitter, Threads, YouTube, and Instagram.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.